June 12, 2014

This September, two years after leveling the expectations of critics and listeners alike with Atma, doom trio powerhouse YOB shall release Clearing The Path to Ascend, an aptly titled album for what will undoubtedly be the crowning achievement for a band whose journey now nears two decades of creating music as commanding as it is cathartic. As is the YOB way, the four tracks on this album don't simply offer a vacuous glimpse into the already riff-soaked doom genre, these songs demand the tandem attention of mind, body, and soul - etching a mark across a sound that finds YOB as formidable as they've ever been. True ascension requires a destruction of those barriers that prevent any movement forward, unsurprisingly, YOB pummels any and all of these obstacles with absolute authority, clearing the way for genuinely visceral listening experience and climbing upward into a realm that sets the band in a heavy metal place that has been and will always remain wholly their own.

YOB'smusic is not unlike the path that's let them to their current place among heavy metal's elite, slowly building from a hushed ethereal vapour into the thunderous and masterful tumult of sound domination. The ethereal mists of Eugene, Oregon no doubt provided the perfect catalyst for founding member and vocalist Mike Scheidt to call up the signature of surging doom that would soon come to garner YOB its current position as one of the most respected and revered bands in all of heavy metal. While giving due sonic credit to the cornerstone influences such as Cathedral, Sleep, Electric Wizard, and Black Sabbath - YOB immediately set out to define a sound wholly singular and utterly devastating in its cathartic enormity.

Those threads of progressive rock and drone that have always underscored the music of YOB are now fully realized with Clearing The Path To Ascend, as each track forges into the next with a ferocity that's as completely unhinged as it is utterly focused. Drummer Travis Foster wields his signature rhythmic furore here with bombastic precision while bassist Aaron Rieseberg, coils around the sonic tide with an unforgiving churn - all the while in a deadly synchronicity with Scheidt's uncanny vocal range and its pendulous movement between the triumphant howls of a medieval madman and the earth splitting growls of a war-battered titan.

With Clearing The Path To Ascend,YOB explores a thunderous dimension that's familiar in its auditory clout but completely new in the execution of its trajectory, taking the band's sound into a remarkable place as ethereally compelling in its aesthetic, as it is merciless in the magnitude of its sound.

Behold the artwork that will adorn this work of art, and check out the track listing below:

In Our Blood

Nothing To Win

Unmask The Spectre

Marrow

Comments founding vocalist/guitarist Mike Scheidt, "Writing this album felt like being plugged into a main. Emotionally, it's our heaviest. But it also has some real beauty and light. We dug the deepest we ever have to get to the heart of these tunes."

“YOB might be one of the best bands in North America,” — Ben Ratliff; New York Times

“The second track on Clearing The Path To Ascend has some of the most furious drums I’ve ever heard from Travis Foster. We’re talking Through Silver In Blood-level.” – The Obelisk’s Roadburn 2014 Recap